Mystery novel

“ We had long been at once attracted and repelled by that very modern form of the police novel or mystery story, which consists in beginning your yarn anywhere but at the beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the end; attracted by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar difficulties that attend its execution; repelled by that appearance of insincerity and shallowness of tone, which seems its inevitable drawback. For the mind of the reader, always bent to pick up clues, receives no impression of reality or life, rather of an airless, elaborate mechanism ”

“ All who are accustomed to novel reading or writing, are aware of the fascinating power of mystery. They even consider it a principal test of a good story that the plot should be impenetrable, and the final result concealed up to the last page. ”

“ It is not that man seeks to frighten himself that he reads these stories and is fascinated by them. Psychologists, of one sort or another, have said that the popularity of ghost stories and mystery novels can be traced to a desire to enjoy vicariously the precarious situations in which characters in these tales find themselves; and that by substituting themselves for the characters involved the readers may obtain a certain stimulation which is lacking in their humdrum, calm and civilized lives. ”

“ When you have come to the end, you will be sadly disappointed, and will find that all the mystery evaporates, and leaves a dull, commonplace residuum. It is best that the few mysteries which remain to us unexplained should still remain mysteries, or we shall disbelieve in supernatural agencies altogether. We have searched out the arcana of nature, and exposed all her secrets to the garish eye of day, and we find, in despair, that the poetry and romance of life are gone. Are we the happier for knowing that there are no ghosts, no fairies, no witches, no mermaids, no wood spirits? ”

“ Those are just a few of the questions you will ask yourself, as you rush through this baffling tale of mystery piled upon mystery. It's a breathless book—a story in which action never ceases for a moment, and whose outcome you never suspect until the last big moment of struggle when mystery ceases to be mystery, and you breathe the contented sigh that comes at the end of a good story well told—and thoroughly enjoyed. ”

“ What more lurid than the depths of desire, what more mysterious than the hinterlands of conscience? And what event is so great a mystery as life itself? I believe that every tale should be a mystery tale. ”

“ Authors, publishers, editors, dramatists, writers of motion pictures tell us that never before has there been such an intense and wide interest in mystery stories as there is to-day. That in itself explains the interest in the super-mystery story of the ghost and ghostly doings.
Another element of mystery lies in such stories. Deeper and further back, is the supreme mystery of life—after death—what?
"Impossible," scorns the non-psychic as he listens to some ghost story. ”

“ Such stories readily fall into two classes, with as many sub-sorts as the invention of man may compass—those which are soluble and those which are not. Of the former, the detective story is the more common, followed at no very great distance by the tale which seems to involve the supernatural, but whose mystery transpires quite plainly in the end. Of the latter are all those inexplicable wonder-fictions dealing with shapes that haunt the dream-dusk, the whole shadow-land of wraiths and spirits and presences and immaterialities which cross the borders of experience at the call of fantasy. ”

“ Marvels never cease; in youth one finds the exterior world marvellous, later on one finds one's inner life extraordinary, and what seemed marvellous to me now was that I should have changed so much. The seeing of the ghost might be put down to my fancy, but how explain the change in the wood--was its mystery also a dream, an imagination? ”

“ It is the rule that everything beautiful and precious in this world should have mystery attached to it. There is the enduring mystery of art, the mystery that endows plain flesh and blood with genius. ”

“ MARIONETTA My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which gives me great uneasiness.
MR FLOSKY That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery. Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream; for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision of pure reason. ”

“ He felt the fascination and repulsion of its impenetrable mystery, of its stark and desolate wastes, whose spell is yet so potent in the imagination of man, that many have found in its barren horror the very heart of beauty. ”

“ They stood still to listen. A mystery that was more than the mystery of night closed about their hearts—a mystery that is beyond life and death, that only great awe and terror can summon from the deeps of the soul. ”

“ And let the whole world’s gladness be complete.{126}
Come with the face that hushed the heavens of old—
Come with Thy maidens in a mist of light;
Haste for the night falls and the shadows fold,
And voices cry and wander on the height.
{127} The Flying Mist
I watch afar the moving Mystery,
The wool-shod, formless terror of the sea—
The Mystery whose lightest touch can change
The world God made to phantasy, death-strange.
Under its spell all things grow old and gray
As they will be beyond the Judgment Day. ”

“ This falsely inspired man, entirely devoted to mystical compositions, vaguely painted—philosophical and critical, as he said—this thinker, whose brush painted obscure subjects as it might have produced signs, did not dream that the girl growing up beside him was also in love with chimeras, and drawn toward the abyss, not however to learn the mysteries hidden by the clouds, but the mystery of life, the secret of the visions that haunted her, of the disquieting temptations that filled her with such feverish excitement. ”

“ Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a mystery, a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery. ”

“ Mystery is not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light passability; but she does such miracles in her own behalf, that, one of these days, when she dies, they’ll be amazed to find an old woman in her bed, distantly like her. She was an actress once, I shouldn’t wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on herself. Perhaps, Compact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait with a shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to Mademoiselle in railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently, as Mystery does now. ”

“ Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognises the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall,—he shall be a delirious Mystic ”

“ And romantic it certainly was—the fog, like the gray shadow of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and clamoring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear. ”

“ In every little burning light that flickers in a barred window up above, you must be able to see plotters at work, conspirators planning deeds of evil or a lover in his mistress' arms. You've got to see magic, mystery, tragedy, and romance, all compassed by grey stone and green water, to know the sort of place where my mother and father live, to know the place where I should have taken you, if--if things had been different. ”

“ Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair! ”

“ What particularly impelled me to write this letter is the story in the current issue, entitled ‘Beyond the Door.’ One reason why I single this one from such a congeries of thrilling, weird tales is that, with all its mystery and suggestion of the supernatural, the dénouement and everything that leads up to it are discovered at the end to be logically and physically ‘possible.’ So often, in mystery stories, we are called upon to accept much that simply is not naturally possible, and we turn from them, duly horrified, but unpersuaded that the tale is more than a figment of a morbid imagination. ”

“ A story of romance, mystery, and adventure, in which, as in many mystery stories, there is the adventuress, with whom, for some reason, the peer, notwithstanding his breeding and social position, becomes entangled, until he is mysteriously put out of the way. From this point on complication and adventure succeed each other in rapid succession, holding the reader in rapt fascination until the end of the story is reached, where the plots of love and mysterious disappearances are surprisingly unfolded. ”

“ Then slowly resolving and melting away after the manner of dreams, the wide spaces of the mystery drew closer and warmer, and a great centre of blazing logs threw grotesque, dancing lights among them, and an old face peered out with bright, keen eyes, now seen, now lost in the fitful shadows, now pale and appealing or cautiously withdrawn, but always watching—watching while the little crooked being came and watched also. ”

“ The little mysteries are all embraced in the big Mystery, which would not be mysterious if we had the power to understand it. I was always that kind of a sceptic which believes in there being a reason for everything. When I was a girl I saw ghosts—unmistakably visible ghosts—and even in their presence, certain that they could not be flesh and blood creatures, and paralysed with horror to know it, I was able to keep this attitude of mind. ”

“ Mystery revealed itself within mystery, and this was indeed a labyrinth, to the heart of which I sometimes despaired of penetrating. Who was this woman whose elusive figure appeared at every turn in the case? ”

“ Albeit, in those orbs to which the demons of my rank have admission, there be greater adumbrations of some transcendent Mystery than here, yet have I never seen that Mystery itself, and know not if it be male or female. Aeons ago, when I was young and incautious, when the world was new and bright, and there were more stars than now, I, too was attracted by this Mystery, and sought after it in all accessible spheres. But failing to find the thing itself, I soon grew weary of embracing its shadows, and took to the pursuit of illusions less insubstantial. ”

“ When that is explored, there are new and wonderful possibilities beyond the hills, then beyond the seas, beyond the known world, in the everyday chances and movements of the unknown life in which we are circumstanced. [292]
“Surely we should all perish through sheer inanity, or die desperately by suicide if no mystery remained in the world. Mystery takes a thousand beautiful shapes; it lurks even in the handiwork of man, in a stone god, or in some mighty, intricate machine, incomprehensibly deliberate and determined. ”

“ Can mystery be separable from sublime or profound greatness, when viewed through human powers? Are not height, and depth, and space, and air, all mysterious [Pg 186] to your minds, when beyond the reach of the eye? Is not darkness alone profoundly mysterious? ”

“ Comment. This, then, is a narrative the mystery of which must be explained by each reader to his own satisfaction. If the reader “believes” in the supernatural, he will take the whole thing, ghostly scene and all, as somehow occurring. If he does not “believe,” he will then accept the scene as the obsession of a sick man—with a few details left in mystery. I should class it as a story of the supernatural, wherein the appearance is visible to the sick or the clairvoyant mind. ”

“ I went to school in France and Germany, as well as in England, and, do you know, I really cannot find one bit of romance that has ever happened to me or to the girls I have known. I can't remember anything mysterious."
"Isn't life one great mystery?"
"Yes, mystery if you like, but simply because of our ignorance. When the mystery is explained, the explanation is as prosy as that cottage." And she looked towards a cottage door, where a woman stood by her wash-tub. "Do you ever find life mysterious, Mr. Erskine?" ”

“ Mystery has an indescribable charm, which is the thing that makes me so fond of riddles; and so I determined to have a hero or a heroine, I did not care which, of a most unexampled kind. But how to invent an unexampled hero, I could not imagine. ”

“ Here was our first (and still largest) national romance, the first wild-flower of mystery, the first fierce passion of an uncommonly hard-fisted youth. To this day it persists the only glamour between the covers of our geography. For more than fifty years its only name has been a witchcraft, and its spell is stronger now than ever, as shall be coolly demonstrated. This has meant something in the psychology of so unfanciful a race. The flowering of imagination is no trivial incident, whether in one farm boy's life or in a people's. ”

“ They played like children, defying the tide of mystery that this haunted land pours against the modern human soul, while yet the wonder and the mystery added to their enjoyment, deepening their happiness by contrast. ”